


tear them apart

by thisisthefamilybusiness



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Character Turned Into Vampire, Emily is a child and is wounded by Corvo quite severely, Gen, I don't know how to tag this but, Parent-Child Relationship, Pre-Canon, So fair warning, Vampires, Violence, Violence against Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 21:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12566188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisthefamilybusiness/pseuds/thisisthefamilybusiness
Summary: Would this have amused the black-eyed bastard, wherever he was?Oh Corvo, you try so hard to be good, don’t you? To deny your own nature, new and monstrous as it is to you. Sucking down the blood of sewer rats and stray hounds like that could ever satisfy you.Corvo should have stayed in Serkonos. The Outsider had been right, hadn’t he?One day, Corvo, you won’t be able to control it anymore. You’ll sink your teeth into a heart and you won’t know it’s hers until it’s too late.





	tear them apart

**Author's Note:**

> spooky scary vampire!Corvo AU just in time for Halloween!
> 
> Title comes a Richard Siken quote because I'm unimaginative: "You do this, you do. You take the things you love, and tear them apart."

“What have you done?”

Distantly, Corvo can hear someone trying to speak at him, but he cannot bring himself to focus past the agonizing burning pain of hunger. Liquid heat slides down Corvo’s jaw, and he snarls instinctively, tugging the body tighter against his own as he licks the blood away. His meal stopped fighting several minutes ago, limp and silent in his arms.

“Corvo, what have you done? Let go of her!” There is screaming now, terror.

There is so much blood, warm and vibrant, and Corvo is uncertain that anything has ever felt as good, tasted so good before.

There are people rushing in, trying to tug his meal away, and Corvo lashes out, snapping his teeth and tucking the small body closer to his. Someone hits him in the back of head with the flat of a sword, stunning him momentarily, and he lets go of the body to grapple the attacker down onto the floor, rip their throat open with his teeth. This blood is not as sweet as his first taste had been, as the girl’s, but it still sates the hunger.

“Someone help us!” More screaming. “He had Emily!”

While he’s distracted with the first attacker’s throat, two more try him from behind, two sets of hands gripping his jaw as a leather belt closes under his neck.

“Is Emily okay? Oh, please, my baby, is she okay? My baby, my baby…”

Corvo thrashes, but the belt tightens more around his neck with the action, and he gags, spitting blood.

“Get him down! Grab his arms!”

“Oh, my baby, Emily.” Someone is sobbing. “Oh, Emily.”

Another belt is shoved between Corvo’s teeth, even as he gnashes at it, buckled behind his head so he can’t bite, the leather slick with the blood covering his face. Someone hits him in the head again, and abruptly Corvo’s world fades to pitch-black.

* * *

Corvo can’t bring himself to look at the far corner of his cell.

She gurgled her last mortal breaths a few hours ago, coughing thick congealing bile as her body shifted. If not for the fact that Corvo had torn up her throat so badly, he was sure she’d have been screaming as it happened. He’d screamed when it happened to him, and he’d been a soldier, trained to take physical pain and torture, but this agony was different.

The guards hadn’t stripped him of all his weapons when they’d thrown him in the cell in Coldridge. He still had his folding blade, tucked against his heart.

He should kill her.

She didn’t deserve this. She was barely ten years old. What sort of existence could this be? Blood-hungry and forced to live in the shadows, never able to settle down anywhere. He should push the blade through her neck and finish what he’d started in his blind need for survival.

She hadn’t even struggled against him until his teeth were in her neck. Until it was too late for her to do anything but weakly thump her tiny fists against his body, like she could have stood a chance against him.

_His own daughter._

Would this have amused the black-eyed bastard, wherever he was? _Oh Corvo, you try so hard to be good, don’t you? To deny your own nature, new and monstrous as it is to you. Sucking down the blood of sewer rats and stray hounds like that could ever satisfy you._

He’d done so well at hiding it. Jessamine had only commented that he seemed so much colder than usual, so much more distant on his return from Cullero (because he was so hungry, because he could hear the warm beating of every single living heart in the room and he felt dizzy with it).

Corvo should have stayed in Serkonos. The Outsider had been right, hadn’t he? _One day, Corvo, you won’t be able to control it anymore. You’ll sink your teeth into a heart and you won’t know it’s hers until it’s too late._

At the time, he’d thought the bastard had been taunting him. He hadn’t understood the depth of the Outsider’s power, that he wasn’t simply an older vampire who haunted the Cullero streets and happened upon Corvo, freshly-turned by a sire who left him to rot in the gutter.

He should kill her now, while she’s unconscious, as her body starts to knit itself back together. It would be more merciful than damning her to this life.

Corvo finally looks up, into the corner of the cell. He needs to see her. He needs to know how terrible it is.

Emily is crumpled, lying on her right side, in a pool of black bile and blood that covers her face and neck. Her white jacket and fichu are stained, torn. Her throat is a mess of gore, blood and deep imprints left by Corvo’s teeth, but the skin is slowly closing, healing as the change takes.

To Corvo’s horror, she’s conscious. Her eyes are open, glassy, mouth moving wordlessly as her body convulses weakly.

“I’m so sorry,” Corvo says, voice hoarse. He shuffles towards her on hands and knees. “I’m so sorry.” He props himself against the wall and tugs her into his arms, ignoring the gore that smears against his clothes. She shakes as he holds her.

She should have been an Empress.

He tries to brush his fingers through her short hair, but the blood has matted it, makes it tangle. Her skin is as cold as his now, bloodless and tinted faintly blue-grey. “I’m so sorry, Emily,” he mumbles, burying her face into his neck and pressing his cheek to the top of her head. “I’m so sorry.”

He could do it right now, slide his blade through her sternum and end this transformation before it goes any further. She was only ten. She’d never be older than ten, now, like he’d never be older than thirty-nine.

Emily’s eyes are glazed over with pain she can’t vocalize, expression pinched in agony. Corvo tightens his hold on her as her body spasms violently.

“I’m so sorry,” Corvo repeats. He can’t bring himself to pull his blade out of his jacket. She’s still his daughter.

His hands tremble as he pulls her tighter against him, trying to soothe her as best he can. Nothing can be done for her pain, but he can try to comfort her through the change at least.

She’ll need to feed soon, and if he’s going to get them out of Coldridge, he’ll need his strength too. If they’re in solitary confinement, the guards should rotate out every four hours, and with the shift change will come new people, who undoubtedly want to gawk at the ex-Royal Protector and the dying Imperial Princess. If he can just get one of them close enough to the bars…

He can get her to Tyvia. It’s far enough away from Gristol, from Dunwall that people wouldn’t recognize Emily’s face. The sun isn’t as bright there, the days shorter.

Corvo rocks her gently, like he’d held her when she was a baby. “I have you,” he murmurs. “It’s going to be okay.”

_One day, Corvo, you’ll give in. And when you do, will you have the mercy to kill her? Or will you let her become a monster, too?_

He’ll take her to Tyvia, and things will be good again. He’ll fix this. He’ll find a way.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally part of my Honorless self-created prompt challenge on Tumblr, but today's prompt was simply "Halloween", so I chose to write about vampires. 
> 
> talk to me [on tumblr](http://officialclaricestarling.tumblr.com) | [deleted]


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